


Please Don't Take My Sunshine

by lookatmebellamy



Category: Bellarke - Fandom, Clarke and Bellamy, The 100 (TV), bellamy and clarke - Fandom, clarketavia, season 3 - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:40:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3840859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookatmebellamy/pseuds/lookatmebellamy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>where Clarke buries the mountain men and her pain along with them</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Don't Take My Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> First time writer and eager for feedback. Comments will make my day, enjoy :)

Please Don’t Take My Sunshine Away

The other night dear  
As I lay sleeping  
I dreamed I held you  
In my arms  
When I awoke dear  
I was mistaken  
and I hung my head and cried

June 13 

It was a long way down. When the world was tilted upside down and hurricanes erupted from the small muscles in his upper arm. When they were still the 100, in number and in name. From earth, the dropship was just another shooting star, soaring through the nebula’s. How could anyone know how far they really dropped, in order to reach the earth?

As Clarke fades into the trees, Bellamy knows he’s still falling. His body may be on the ground, but his heart is still tumbling through the sky. He holds on tightly to this thought. For if his heart was truly on the ground, he would be leaving the camp with Clarke. 

His legs numbly carry themselves through the gates and closer to his people. Closer to the remaining 46. He reminds himself once again, that 46 left means 46 alive. Not 54 dead. He keeps a mental catalogue of those he let slip away, those who he failed. Although he cannot remember every name, every face haunts his dreams. Now, he adds Fox and Mathew to the list. Another life lost on earth. 

Bellamy stands on the sidelines, watching his people rejoice, finally. They deserve this, he thinks, they deserve to be happy. Miller bumps shoulders with his dad and smiles. Octavia, his warrior baby sister, shows the younger kids her samurai. Raven, who was carried through the mountains for 7 hours in the arms of Wick, chuckles into her blanket, despite everything.

But beneath the hesitant smiles, Bellamy can also see the pain. The anguish followed them past the gates of Mount Weather. 

He observes Jasper and Monty, the inseparable pair; separated by death, standing on opposing sides of camp. Bellamy watches Jasper’s muscles clench and unclench. He watches Harper and the look of terror in her eyes when someone gets too close.  
It was a long way down to earth, but he knows it will be an even longer descent to who they need to be to survive, who they’ve become. Who we are and who we need to be are two very different things. 

He recognizes with solemn comprehension, that they’ve come a long way, from that first day on the ground, but at a cost none of them are ready to pay. He thinks of Clarke, roving through the woods, a halo of golden hair against a field of green. 

He thinks of Clarke, I bear it so they don’t have to, and he knows that she’s probably the only one, out of all of them, who knows the cost of their fall to earth…and the only one willing to pay for it.

\--

You are my sunshine  
My only sunshine  
You make me happy  
When skies are grey  
You'll never know dear  
How much I love you  
Please don't take my sunshine away

You told me once dear  
You really loved me  
And no one else could come between  
But now you've left me and Iove another  
You have shattered all of my dreams

June 27

She wanders aimlessly through the mountains. She has no company but her thoughts, and no compass but the stars. Days bleed into nights, darkness falling through cracks in the sky. And nights drain away, into blinding light. There’s an indiscernible relief in the cycle. It’s something she can count on, the days will always turn to night, and nights will always give way to days.

Clarke doesn’t sleep. When her mind shuts down every once and a while, her nightmares don’t. They chase her at night, and she runs hard. Sometimes it’s Finn’s, thankyou princess, or Charlotte’s wide eyes shadowing her. Then, it’s Wells’ voice, sounding so much like her own, please sleep Clarke or you need to eat Clarke. She listens- sometimes. Occasionally, she see’s bodies, faces twisted and red, watching her, unblinkingly. But mostly it’s the blood; on her hands, in her hair, swirling through the river, splattered on the trees. When she dreams, she dreams of pools of blood, and for once it’s her own. She always wakes up smiling. She always wakes up dead inside. 

She roams pointlessly. She knows the grounders are no longer a threat. Still, she always hides her tracks with concise determination. She can’t have anyone following her. -She knows by “anyone” she means Bellamy (but it hurts to think about him)-

Finally she reaches the mountaintop. The one they were trying to reach when they first landed on earth. She was just a girl then. Wells has to remind her, you’re just a girl now. She unintentionally made the mountain her destination when she tried to pinpoint where the ark used to be. And through half-lidded eyes and tree branches creating shadows on her face, she could almost make out the unwavering bright light that was once her home. Home, when was the last time she ever felt that way about anywhere? The ark was just 4 walls and a window after her father died. The dropship was crumbling at the seams, and doomed to fail from the start despite her (and bellamy’s) best efforts. Camp Jaha is stained with bad feelings and worse decisions. She wonders if she will ever feel at home again. 

The journey to the mountaintop is a hard one, all steep rocks and jagged edges. She stops at the entrance of the death hole she was responsible for, the one she is trapped in not too long ago. She relives the war cries of a thousand warriors and the reassurance of lexa’s hand on her back. And as she stands in the spot where lexa left her alone and broken, Clarke begins to understand why she did it. Clarke still can’t help but think that she wouldn’t have had to pull that goddamn lever if Lexa would have just stayed and fought like she was supposed to. Maybe Clarke wouldn’t have so much blood on her hands (in her hair, swirling through the river, splattered on the trees, in her heart). She never wanted to hurt anybody. She healed people, she patched them up when they needed her to, she was supposed to save lives, not take them. 

The large metal door hangs open slightly and she slips through unnoticed. Of course she thinks, everyone’s dead. She starts with the first level and works her way down, committing every room to memory, taking what she needs and moving to the next. She painfully examines the children’s rooms; nurseries, playrooms and classrooms. Every one is a scattered mess, toys and childlike drawings strewn on ever surface. When she’s ready, she enters the mess hall. A dark room filled to the brim with rotting flesh. Bodies that once contained beating hearts. Human beings that were no longer being because of her. 

And so she buries them, the only way she knows how. She drags every distorted body to the big metal doors that once protected hundreds of people. She leaves the children for last; she finds them huddling in a corner, face down. From her place above them, it is as if they are only sleeping. She can’t see the swollen lips and hollow eyelids, or the blistering, cracked skin. Clarke tries to imagine the girl with the red ribbon in her hair waking up from her slumber, and laughing at her for thinking that they were really dead. All Clarke can muster is the child’s face twisting in horror, a cry for help, and a scream of agony. Clarke knows that in this nightmare, she is the monster. 

She camps in the mountain for three sunsets, takes her time burning the bodies. Whispering over and over again, Yu Gonplei ste odon, the kiss of death that ingrains itself in her mind. Wells reminds her; your fight isn’t over, not yet. 

Clarke only buries the children, side by side, in a circle around the doors. She buries them with toys and pictures, she hopes they won’t have to brave the next world alone. Her dad once told her that a soul is never truly rested until the body is rightfully placed into the ground. When the ark moaned and groaned deep in the night, he told her the dead were still wandering. Then again, her dad told her a lot of things, things that killed him in the end. Nevertheless, she braids their hair and sings to them until the grave is full. 

She doesn’t cry, but the tears don’t stop falling. Before the sun can rise on the fourth day, she dumps the ashes of the dead into the river, makes a cross for every grave, and leaves the stench of decaying flesh behind her. She climbs the mountain without a rope, and she lays her life down for the mountain to take. Every slip of her foot, every mishandling of her hand, is met with another rock to hold on to, or another crevice to stick her foot in. Wells says the mountain is trying to tell her something. She ignores him. When she reaches the mountaintop, it is night once again. 

She stands on the edge of the precipice. She can barely register the cold. Then again, she doesn’t exactly register anything. Not the wounds on her body, or the bones protruding through her shirt, or even the blue hue to her fingers. Clarke can only sense the stars around her. Bits of dust and light surrounding her like a blanket. She wonders with the tender fascination of a child: if she had a running start, could she jump high enough to find her place among the stars? Could she cease to exist? Could she really become just another floating sphere of plasma drifting through the galaxy? Wells’ voice fails her this time. She imagines the sickening crunch of bones, the spread of blood. Yearns to just let go. To let go of the sinking feeling in her bones, and the heavy weight of her heart. To let herself be free, truly free, from the illusory hands around her throat and the thoughts that plague her mind. As she teeters along the line of the dead and the living, she looks down. And instead of feeling the weight lift off of her, she only sees the drop that will take her life. 

She wonders if her dad can see her now. Wherever he is. He had his life taken from him too early. She idly wonders what he will think if she takes her own. 

Finally, the twinkling lights of Camp Jaha blink diligently at her from far away. They look like stars. Standing on the highest peak the eye can see, she takes a breath that fills her lungs with more than just oxygen. She breathes in the earth and the stars and it gives her strength. Clarke revels in the way, the wind currents through her body and tangles in her hair. She looks to the place where she knows her friends are settling and building lives, and Clarke knows that she’d rather find her place among the stars that shine so brightly on the ground, then in the sky. But she also knows that she needs time before she can return to them. Before she can return to Bellamy. It can’t ever be worth the risk again. And Clarke remembers the silent promise she gave him, a kiss on the cheek, the determination in her eyes, I’m coming back to you, I promise. Clarke has never broken a promise, and she doesn’t intend on starting now.

October 3rd

It gets easier. She finds a bunker on her way to the sea. It’s bigger and stocked more heavily then the one Finn found (she can think of him without making indents in her hands now). She plans to only stay there for a few days, but she loses track of time when she finds a room stocked high with books. Before she knows it, the seasons change and it’s almost winter (the temperature altitudes are still such a mystery to her). 

She begins to feel the pangs of hunger again. Soon, she can sleep without having nightmares. The weight on her heart recedes and she realizes the hands that suffocate her are her own. 

Clarke is not the same girl she was when she first landed on earth, but she isn’t the girl she was a few months ago either. She smudges ash around her eyes, and paints her face with warrior colours. She is the flame in the fire. Her hair has grown unkempt and unruly, tumbling blonde curls reach her waist. Only her eyes stay the same, a stormy blue that shine beneath the colours that decorate her face. She doesn’t run from the dead anymore, she runs alongside them.

By the time spring rolls around, she’s read every book in the library twice, and lost hours teaching herself how to swim in the soothing waves of the ocean. She begins to draw again when the leaves start to grow back. First it’s just animals she’s never seen before or characters out of Pride and Prejudice. Then she’s drawing the outline of Miller’s beanie or the hard set of Raven’s eyebrows, sometimes her mother’s smile or Octavia’s eyes. She holds off on drawing Bellamy, but when she does, it’s hard to stop. It begins with the hard-calloused planes of his hands, or the sweat that drips down his neck on a particularly hard day. Then it develops into full body sketches… Bellamy leaning against a tree, Bellamy laughing at a joke, Bellamy’s face highlighted by the fire. Bellamy with those deep dark eyes of his, staring into her soul. She only wishes she could get his freckles right, or the hard set of his jaw. And she tells herself that that’s the reason she needs to see him again, so she can get his drawing right. (She ignores the fact that she dreams of him every night)

You are my sunshine  
My only sunshine

June 18

When she finally feels ready to go back home, (yes she calls wherever he is: home now) an unrealistic fear overtakes her. She wonders uneasily if they even want her to come home. She left them a year ago. They haven’t heard from her in 12 months They’ve probably forgotten all about me, she thinks. And why would they want her back, after everything she’s done? After all the death she’s responsible for? Finally Clarke thinks of Jasper (How could you) Clarke decides to stay in the little cottage she’s built over the bunker entrance, for a little while longer. Bellamy’s drawing will have to wait, she thinks. 

 

You make me happy  
When skies are grey

Present June 23rd

Clarke is starting to travel farther out to get a decent meal nowadays. The animals were scarce before she found the bunker, and they are scarcer now. She usually hunts at dawn, when the animals are just waking up, but today she opts for sleep and sets out midday. When she gets too close to the mountain for comfort, she changes direction. She looks different now, but she’s certain the children 6 feet under will still recognize her. 

Finally, she spots a deer hidden under the cover of the trees. With agile movements, she pulls back the arrow on her bow (she opts for the silence and the swiftness of a bow over a gun) and takes her aim. Her shot is ruined when she hears subtle rustling behind her and the deer escapes. Clarke rapidly swivels in place and points her arrow at the intruder. 

A familiar voice calls out, “Wait!” 

Her mind races, “Octavia,” she whispers.

The green-eyed warrior steps out of the underbrush, “Clarke?” She exclaims.  
Octavia only hesitates a moment before enveloping Clarke in a firm embrace. Clarke stiffens considerably; this is the most human contact she’s had in over a year. 

“We thought you were dead,” Octavia whispers, “I’m glad you’re not.”

Tentatively, Clarke smiles and pats Octavia awkwardly on the back. It’s small, but it’s a start. 

“You should know better,” Clarke says meaningfully,” it takes more than that to get rid of me.”

Octavia pulls back and takes a good look at Clarke, “Where have you been?” She murmurs. Staring at her bow and arrow, along with her heavily painted eyelids and dirt-smeared face. 

Clarke leads her back to the cottage after great prodding. Octavia marvels at the embers burning in the improvised fireplace and the maps hanging from wall to wall.

“You’ve been living here this whole time?” Octavia asks, “why haven’t you come back yet?” Octavia notices the drawings on the wall. She stares pointedly at the woman with the haunted green eyes and unyielding lines drawn lightly around the womans mouth. 

Clarke watches Octavia under hooded eyelids; “I didn’t think you wanted me too.” She refuses to keep eye contact with Octavia. Both of the Blakes had a habit of calling her out when she fucked up. 

Octavia regards Clarke calmly, “come with me.” When Clarke doesn’t follow her out the door, “Now!” She hollers. The sound emanates from the roof of her mouth with such brutal force that Clarke finds herself one step behind Octavia in seconds.

 

Octavia takes Clarke back to the grave of the mountain children. Clarke, come home, has been scribbled on the metal doors. Clarke can feel her heartbeat throbbing against her skin and she knows there are only two paths she can take from here. Clarke can either run back to the safety of the ocean, or hold her head high, march straight into the abyss, and face the consequences. It’s only a surprise to Clarke when she chooses the latter. 

“When you didn’t come back for 3 months, Bellamy lost his shit and was gone for days looking for you. When he couldn’t find you…” Octavia glances back at Clarke with a knowing glint in her eye.

Clarke can feel her heart reverberating through her heart, “Is he okay?” She briefly wonders if he’s changed. What if he’s found someone who can love him right? The thought dissipates almost as quickly as it came. It’s always been Bellamy who could make her smile, truly smile. Only Bellamy can make her forget. Only Bellamy can help her become the person she was meant to beHe’s the smile she wakes up with. The clouded heart to her level head. He’s the face she wants to see before she falls sleep and after she wakes up. He’s the birds singing in the trees and the smell of earth and sweat. He’s the only bright space left in her heart. And if Clarke knows Bellamy half as much as he knows her, she can tell love from infatuation. And love makes people do crazy things. His love in particular makes her want to bring so much life onto the earth that it overcomes all the death. 

Octavia throws her head back and laughs at Clarke’s expression, “just as good as you are,” she says. 

“And everyone else?” Clarke is reminded once again of the ones she’s lost and hopes she doesn’t have to add another loved one to the list.

“Why don’t you see for yourself?” Clarke quietly follows Octavia after that, drawing closer and closer to the camp. 

They emerge from the trees she had disappeared in over a year ago. Beyond the gates, reborn with walls of sturdy metal, she can see her people milling about. Just a few more steps and they could see her. “I don’t know if I can do this,” Clarke whispers, “if they don’t…” She takes a deep breath, “I don’t know what I would do.”

Octavia envelops Clarke’s hand in her own, “I forgive you, you know. For everything that went down,” she motions to the camp, “they do too.”

They emerge from the shelter of the trees together. 

 

\--  
You'll never know dear  
How much I love you  
Please don't take my sunshine away

Bellamy Present Day

Clarke always managed to find a way into his dreams. The first time he caught sight of her golden curls, he thought she had died, and was back to haunt him, like so many of the other dead. After going weeks without seeing the girl with storms in her eyes and stars in her heart, he would wait anxiously for night to come. He was starved, not of food, (for he has made sure they had plenty of that) but of her smile, her voice, the scent of jasmine and leaves. And he longed for the time he spent with her when the sun dipped low over the horizon. He dreamed of mountains and starlight, of finding her in a place between the ground and the sky. He dreamed of a princess and a knight, defeating the dragon together. He often wondered if Clarke, wherever she was, dreamed of him.

The day had been a long one. He had met the tri krew in a rebuilt TonDC to barter for more hunting grounds. As Commander Lexa was not in the brightest mood, (sightings of the Ice clan again) the meeting was brief and Bellamy came back with defeat; an added weight on his shoulders. Seeing as he had taken the night shift, Bellamy collapsed onto his bed and didn’t wake, even when the newcomer horn blew.

Bellamy dreams of a princess with flowers in her hair. The sight of her blinds him, eyes as blue as the belladonna’s on the crown of her head, and hair brighter than the sun. The angel smiles up at him, “Will you be my knight, Bellamy?” He reaches for her hands; they feel so real… there’s a dent at the top of her middle finger that comes from painting too hard, and there’s engraved scars where smooth skin used to be. He checks for blood, but there is none. Bellamy holds on to her hands so tightly, they leave crescent moon indents in the space between her thumb and forefinger. She doesn’t seem to mind. 

“Always princess,” he whispers. In the tatters of his subconscious he can hear faint giggling. Suddenly the angel with golden hair disappears and he’s left alone once again. “Clarke, where did you go,” he mutters. Faintly, a voice murmurs from far away, “I’ve always been right here Bellamy.” Slowly, Bellamy opens his eyes. Clarke sits directly in front of him, intently scribbling in her drawing notebook. In this new reality, his princess has beautiful long hair and her eyes are brighter and bluer than he’s ever seen. 

Relieved, “There you are princess,” Bellamy sighs sleepily, “I thought I’d lost you.” Clarke’s eyes twinkle as she leans into him, “you’ll never lose me.” He smiles wide and pulls her small frame onto the bed. Desperately trying to memorize every inch of her face and make the blissful fantasy last as long as possible before he has to wake up and face the world without her. This was the most vivid dream he’d ever had. He wraps himself around her and prays he remembers the way her body felt against his, just so. He kisses her forehead; “promise me,” Bellamy whispers into her hair, “that you’ll never leave.” Clarke laughs into his chest and it’s so right and real that he wonders if this is all really just an illusion. “Never again Bellamy, I promise”

And she never did.

\---  
I'll always love you  
And make you happy  
If you will only  
Stay the same

She was there when he fully awoke, his arms wrapped all the way around her torso, their legs tangled together under the blankets. Her head was nestled in his neck, her lips on his pulse point. He could hear her breath. He buried his face in her hair, and kissed her head, because she was real. And she was in his arms. And she was never leaving again.

You are my sunshine  
My only sunshine  
Please don’t take my sunshine away


End file.
